


Thirty-one Cans

by soups



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-26
Updated: 2015-02-26
Packaged: 2018-03-15 07:19:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3438449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soups/pseuds/soups
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Apparently, buying juice from the convenience store is a three-person task.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thirty-one Cans

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Haikyuu!! Secret Valentine 2015.

Kenma halted his steps before staring impassively into the ground, slowly batting his eyelids. The earth rotated with a speed of 465 meters per second, so technically he should be arriving in that convenience store in about 2 seconds by standing still. If only there were no gravity...

But well, for now he’d have to walk a few more hundred meters to his destination, he guessed. Kuro and his antics, Kenma should have slipped outside when that sketchy childhood friend of his brought out a deck of uno cards. At first it had been a harmless game, but of course sooner or later someone (in this case, that loud Fukurodani guy) would say, “Whoever loses the next round gotta run to buy us some juice!” Kenma was about to escape quietly after that, but Hinata took off without bringing the money and of course, “The next guy who loses gotta bring it to Ochibi-chan!”

He would’ve succeeded escaping if Kuroo hadn’t waited right in front of the door, and would’ve won if Yaku-san hadn’t placed a plus four card to end his turn.

But maybe it wasn’t so bad. He had been meaning to talk to Shouyou since he arrived, but for some reason, Kenma had found it hard to bring himself close to him. Nothing bad was happening between them or anything, but Hinata’s presence on and around the court could be really… intimidating.

“Oh! Kenma!” Hinata chirped when the store’s door rang and the half-blonde came in. “Sorry to trouble you!”

“It’s nothing,” Kenma answered, eyeing Hinata’s face, then glancing briefly at the basket in his hands. “Let’s pay and go back soon.”

“‘Right!!” Hinata beamed, then began walking while humming the store’s CM jingle. Kenma stared at him before following the boy from behind, observing. Seriously, did he say anything that was worth that beam? Sometimes, Hinata could be very confusing.

Kenma always thought Shouyou was like a ray of sunshine. In the deepest dark before dawn, he always managed to bring the best of the moment and smile anyway. To tell the truth, for Kenma who chose to spend most of his life in the shadow, being showered with that ray could be really tiring.

But he didn’t mind. If it were Shouyou, he didn’t mind. There was something magnetic about that radiating smile; it felt tiring, sure, but at the same time, it was relaxing. Confusing? Yes, that guy was a ball of mystery.

But he liked them anyway, both Shouyou and the feeling he made Kenma feel.

“Kenma?” he heard his name called. While he was lost on his own thoughts, the cashier had processed all 31 cans of drinks, and the orange-head, for some reason, looked panicked.

“Yeah?”

“Is this all you brought with you? Do you have a change or something?” he asked, blinking his eyes hopefully. Kenma raised and eyebrow.

“Wait,” the setter replied, reaching in and out his pockets. He felt nothing in them. “Yeah, that’s all I have with me. Why?”

“Uhh, we’re short by 500 yen…”

—

That dumbass Hinata! Not only he forgot the juice money, now he dared saying that he was short by 500 yen!? Granted, the second wasn’t really his fault, but if he remembered to bring the money the first time Kageyama wouldn’t be in this situation now. Dammit!

“im at the bread shop. where are you?” Kageyama read the brief text that came not too long after he cursed. His savior was here!

“I’m in front of a blue house,” he replied promptly. Half a minute passed before another text came,

“...  
ok. stay.”

“Hey,” the sudden voice from his right almost gave him a heart attack.

“K-Kozume-san!” Kageyama, in the midst of surprise, managed to choke up the sophomore’s name. “I just got your text!”

“Yeah, the bread store is just around the corner, actually,” Kenma answered, putting his cell phone back to his pocket. “Let’s go.”

“Ah, okay!” the black-haired said while he did the same, then hurried his first few steps to catch up to the shorter. “Sorry to trouble you! I didn’t expect Tokyo’s streets to be this confusing…”

“It’s fine,” Kenma mumbled. “It’s not too far anyway.”

“Thanks anyway!” Kageyama said, Kenma glanced at him and nodded before looking back to the front.

The freshman took a peek (actually, stared) at the guy beside him. Didn’t that hair look super cool!? He meant, it was blonde  _and_  black! The coolest guys have those hair colors, like Noya-san! Maybe he should dye his like that too? Would it suit him? Maybe he’d go ask Noya-san later. Also did you  _see_ Kozume-san’s arms, if you bumped into him on the streets, you wouldn’t think he was a sportsman, an  _amazing_  one at that. Those arms looked skinny, but the power it possessed on the court was  _unbelievable_. Seriously, Kozume-san was  _incredible_.

Wait.

He froze when the realization hit him: he was alone with one of the coolest setters he’d ever met.

Goddammit Tobio, why hadn’t you realized this sooner?! You could’ve prepared some questions to ask him right now! At the training place, Kenma was always either with someone else or was nowhere to be found, so this was his chance!

“I— Uhh, Kozume-san,” he tried to start. Kenma peered.

“You can drop ‘-san’,” he replied promptly. “I don’t like honorifics much. Just call me Kenma, Shouyou does too.”

“Oh, uhh, okay.” Kageyama fidgeted; for some reason, he found himself quite self-conscious to call Kenma that. He might not look like it, but Kageyama knew pretty well where respect was due. It felt strange to call someone he respected, and a senior nonetheless, on a first-name basis, without honorifics.

But was it really because of a sense of disrespect? It felt strange, like attempting to cal that name required a lot of extra strength to let it out from his throat, and when he did put an effort to do so, his face felt so warm sweats started to drip down his neck. Was it normal? Would calling Oikawa-san and Sugawara-san with their first names make him feel that way? He wouldn’t know (and he wouldn’t want to  _try_  to know), all he knew was at the moment, he didn’t have the guts to look at Kenma straight in the face.

“Ke— Kenma,” he finally managed to say, his voice was almost whispering this time as he felt himself tensing up by every syllable. It didn’t help that the catlike boy now had his eyes focused on him, observing his moves. “S— so! You’re—” He took a deep breath. Here goes nothing! “You’re awesome and the way you set is really beautiful and you always know where and who to give the ball to and you always pay attention to both your teammates and your opponents and your hair looks awesome and you’re just really really  _cool_!” After the struggle he put up just to say Kenma’s name, you wouldn’t think he would be able to bombard out what seemed like 10 words per second.

The blonde stared at him for a second, then two, unsure what his reaction should be. Did Kageyama say something about his hair somewhere? “It’s nothing really special, really.”

“But it is!!” By this moment, Kageyama’s eyes were almost glistening, yet his face still looked like he’d been constipated for three whole days. Kenma blinked his eyes at the sight. “Your technique is amazing! Can you teach me next time, p— please?!”

“I— uhh.” The older was still taken aback by the sudden burst of praises. “I really don’t do anything special, so there’s really nothing I can teach you.” The stars in Kageyama’s eyes dimmed. “But you can come watch us practice, I guess.” And they were back.

“Really?! Thank you!!”

What a surprisingly nice turn of events! This is amazing! He’d prepare questions to ask when he’d go watch Kenma’s practice! This is exciting!

Dammit, he guessed he should thank that Dumbass Hinata later.

—

“Hahaha, the King got lost in Tokyo! That sounds like a movie title!”

“Shut up, Dumbass! At least I brought what I was told to, unlike a certain someone.”

“What…! At least I didn’t have to have someone pick me up when going to the convenience store!”

“S-shut up, Dumbass!”

“Can’t you say anything else?!”

Seriously, what was Kageyama’s problem?! Hinata knew he wasn’t the brightest kid, but it wasn’t like Kageyama was any different. And he had more vocabulary than the king did! Or well at least he thought so.

They finally completed their purchase and just started walking back to Fukurodani—Kenma was typing something on his phone and Kageyama was walking while looking pissed, like always. Hinata was frowning, too, thanks to him, and the sound of cans bumping into each other jingled every time he took a step forward. Kageyama glanced.

“Give me,” the setter suddenly said, offering his palm to Hinata. The orange-head looked at him questioningly.

“What?”

“The plastic bags, Dumbass, you bought juice for 30 people, right? Gotta be heavy.”

“Wha…! Are you saying that I’m not strong enough to carry all of these?!”

“Who the hell is saying that?! Are those heavy or not?!”

“...They are.”

“Then gimme one.”

Kageyama was annoying most of the time, but there were times that he was kind and, as much as it creeped Hinata out, it also felt kind of nice.

It was always like that.

The first time they met, he’d never thought they’d play on the same team. The second time, he’d never thought he’d get along well with Kageyama. He was a stuck-up king, an annoying snob whose words seemed to have only one goal: to piss people, especially Hinata, off. But Kageyama had a drive to win, just like him. It was that drive that made him into that pretentious brat. Once he tore that layer, sometimes, just sometimes, Hinata was able to see another side of him. A side that he (though it was hard to admit) didn’t hate so much.

He grinned.

“I changed my mind. Kageyama, hold half.”

“Huh? What?”

“I’m holding the other half. Here, Kenma, hold half of this as well!”

“Huh? Sure…”

Hinata held half a plastic bag in each hand, Kageyama to his right and Kenma to his left both holding the other halves. Smiling ear-to-ear, Hinata reached over his friends' hands before they could expect anything, and Kageyama's reaction was, to his amusement, exactly as imagined:

“Oi, Hinata! W-what the hell?!”

“I told you, you hold half and I’ll hold the other half!”

“But you don't need to h-hold my hand dammit! Let go, I'll carry this myself!"

“Nope!"

“What the hell?! Let go of my h-hand, Dumbass!”

“No can do, look, Kenma doesn’t mind, right, Kenma?”

“...Sure, I guess.”

“See!”

“You…!”

Laughters and screams ensued, and Hinata could feel the grip of Kageyama’s hand on his tightened. Sometimes, the best way to get back to Kageyama was doing something he’d never expected Hinata to do, and darn, it felt great.


End file.
